TV Update

As promised, here's the rest of the story on my TiVO ordeal. I received the unit from the vendor in record time. It was so fast, I didn't even get the tracking e-mail! I set it up but I couldn't find the new account card. The card identifies your machine to the provider and says which services you subscribe to. I couldn't find a place to put my old card. I was puzzled and called DirectVD and was informed in a roundabout way that TiVO and DirectVD have essentially parted company. I thought I'd done enough research when I learned that DirectVD was going back to the equipment leasing model effective tomorrow. The reality was that this deal went down last summer and forced DirectVD to come up with their own equipment. Hence the divorce from TiVO. The tech person told me that I'd be better off returning the TiVO unit and getting a DirectVD Digital Video Recorder from one of their authorized dealers. I researched the unit online and saw all of these negative reviews. I was apprehensive but I didn't want to side with the wrong party in this divorce so I went ahead with my purchase. While it's not as cute and sassy as TiVO, the unit is fine. It's has a few clunky quirks but as long as it records and fastforwards through commercials, it's fine. As a matter of fact, the ffwd key works great! Its functionality is better than the TiVO I used to have and it stores more programming.
Of course, I had to look into returning the TiVO unit to my vendor. I thought I was going to get smoked. I figured okay, return shipping, re-stocking fee, all this shiznit because DirectVD wasn't clear about its program and the TiVO unit description on the vendor Web site did not say "satellite receiver sold separately". I had questions but I didn't feel like talking to Apu in India.



I tried their crustomer service chat. My first attempt was somehow disconnected. I tried again and the dude essentially told me that I was in the 30 day time limit. As long as I didn't sign up for any service with the unit, I could ship it back, no charge and get a full ree-bate (as Spike Rite would say). Rock on. Mad props to my homies at ABT Electronics, home of no tax, usually free shipping, and solid customer service. They is the shiznit!